New minister for Advanced Learning tours campus

The Honourable Richard Brown, Minister of Workforce and Advanced Learning, recently toured campus at the invitation of the University.

Accompanied by President Alaa Abd-El-Aziz and PEI’s Executive Director of Post-Secondary and Continuing Education Susan MacKenzie, Minister Brown visited with the Vice-Presidents and CIO, and made stops at several buildings, meeting briefly with each of the Deans and the University Librarian. The visit was a high-level tour that touched on key initiatives and developments in each faculty.

The Minister, a UPEI alumnus, was appointed to cabinet in June by Premier Wade MacLauchlan and is the MLA for Charlottetown-Victoria Park. No stranger to cabinet, Minister Brown previously served as minister of Development and Higher Education and minister of Environment, Energy and Forestry in former Liberal premier Robert Ghiz’s government.

UPEI Women’s Basketball Panthers welcome Jasmine Jones

University of Prince Edward Island Women’s Basketball Head Coach Greg Gould is pleased to announce Jasmine Jones, a 5'8' guard from Atlanta, Georgia, has committed to the Panthers for the upcoming 2015-16 season.

Jasmine is a quick, athletic point guard who comes from a winning high school program. She is a true point guard who looks to involve her teammates first. Her quickness and athleticism should make her an excellent AUS defender.

“I was impressed with Jasmine's commitment and desire to work at becoming the best student and player possible,” said Coach Gould. “That passion for excellence is what we want from our players.”

“UPEI stood out to me not only on an academic and athletic level, but also on an environmental level. I love the atmosphere at UPEI,” commented Jones. “While on campus, I felt ‘at home’ and in a place that I am capable of being successful, not only on the court but also in the classroom.”

She added, “I bonded with the team so well on my visits, and they informed me on how great the learning environment is at UPEI. I am truly excited to become a part of such a wonderful community.”

Jasmine will be entering the Arts program and plans to study Nursing in the future.

About UPEI Athletics and Recreation

  • Nine varsity sports and six club team programs
  • Proud member of the AUS and CIS
  • Athletic facilities include: Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre, UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place
  • Home of Panther Sports Medicine
  • Other facilities available to students and the community at large include: fitness centre, squash and racquetball courts, competition and leisure pool with hot tub, and two ice arenas

North Atlantic Forum returns to PEI

The 10th North Atlantic Forum and 27th Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation (CRRF) conference, entitled Building Community Resilience: Innovation, Culture, and Governance in Place, is being held in Summerside, September 16-19. And it’s not too late to register! 
 
This conference represents a homecoming: the first North Atlantic Forum, held in September 1998, was hosted by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI. Since then, the NAF has travelled to Corner Brook, Twillingate, Lance au Clair, and St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador; Sydney, Cape Breton Island; Lerwick in the Shetland Islands; Bornholm, Denmark; and Hólar, Iceland. Says Conference Chair, Dr. Laurie Brinklow of the Institute of Island Studies, “We’re happy to be bringing the conference home. We look forward to showcasing the many ways in which Prince Edward Island—and in particular the community of Summerside—demonstrates resilience by building on our strong connections to place. We’ll be sharing best practices of creating and sustaining resilient communities by looking at the ‘dark horses’—businesses, organizations, and people—who contribute to building strong rural communities.”
 
The conference also includes the Annual General Meeting for CRRF. CRRF is committed to bettering the lives of rural Canadians through collaborative research for rural leaders in the community, private sector, and in all levels of government. CRRF works to create credible insights and to improve our understanding of issues and opportunities that are of common interest to rural residents across Canada. 
 
Our opening session—open to the public free of charge—will be at Harbourfront Theatre in Summerside and will feature a fireside chat entitled “Globalization: Who’s winning? Who’s Losing?” looking at rural and regional development in Canada and Europe in the age of globalization. Guest speakers include Dr. Kelly Vodden of the Environmental Policy Institute, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Dr. Sally Shortall, professor of Sociology at Queens University Belfast, United Kingdom.
 
The fireside chat will be followed by the launch of Place Peripheral: Place-Based Development in Rural, Island, and Remote Regions (ISER Books) arising from the 2011 North Atlantic Forum in St. John’s Newfoundland, edited by Kelly Vodden, Godfrey Baldacchino, and Ryan Gibson. We’ll also be launching a special journal issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, stemming from the proceedings of the 2013 North Atlantic Forum in Hólar, Iceland. A reception will follow at the Harbourfront. This event is open to the public, so please join us! The session will begin at 7:30 pm; registration is not required.
 
The three-day Building Community Resilience conference focuses on sustainable community resilience in island and periphery communities and the sustainable living practices that allow those same communities to remain in place, on the edge. The conference will include a lively conversation with approximately 70 paper presentations and panel discussions from researchers, practitioners, and community members from across Canada and around the world. Our keynotes include Daniel G. Pottle (Minister of Finance, Human Resources and Information, Nunatsiavut Government, Newfoundland and Labrador) who will speak about indigenous resilience in Labrador, and a conversation between Dr. Robert Snyder (Executive President, Island Institute, Maine) and Maura Walsh (Chief Executive Officer, IRD Duhallow, Ireland) about community resilience in Maine and Ireland. 
 
There will be three community tour options available to participants: Environmental Resilience: Community Watersheds (Kensington region); Economic and Cultural Resilience (Evangeline Region); and Indigenous Resilience (Lennox Island). Each community tour will include transportation to and from the location as well as discussions from people involved in each community. 
 
The program can be found at http://pei2015.crrf.ca/. A French-language version can be found at http://ipe2015.crrf.ca/. The conference website also contains more information on keynote speakers, community tours, and discussions that will take place throughout the conference. 
 
Daily registration for Thursday, September 19, and Friday, September 18 is $125+HST for the full day (includes breaks, lunch, transportation, and all community tour materials) and $50+HST for the community tour only (includes transportations and all community tour materials). Come join us, and learn from other communities across the North Atlantic and beyond! 
 
The conference is hosted by the Institute of Island Studies, a research and public policy institute based at UPEI, in partnership with the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation (CRRF), and with funding from Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). Other supporting organizations include the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), Tourism PEI Hosting Grant, and the Summerside Tourism Accommodation Levy Fund.
 
For more information, please contact Conference Co-ordinator Emily Thomas at (902) 566-0909 or naf@upei.ca.
 

UPEI Men’s Basketball nabs two Toronto recruits, Mohamed and Suleman

University of Prince Edward Island men’s basketball coach Tim Kendrick is excited to announce that Warsame Mohamed and Amin Suleman have committed to join the Panthers. Both players currently play for the “Bigger Than Basketball Club” program in Toronto, Ontario.

Mohamed is a 6’7” forward who attended A.Y. Jackson High School.

Coach Kendrick comments, "We are very happy to be adding Warsame to our roster. He has a great deal of potential and is a very nice young man. He really understands team play and is willing to do what he can to help us be successful.”

Adds Kendrick, “For a young player, Warsame has good overall size, and we believe that he will have a great career here coming right out of high school.”

Mohamed says, "I am thrilled to join UPEI and become a Panther. I feel my skill set as a stretch four, and of playing outside the perimeter and on the block, will really fit in Coach Kendrick’s system. Coach Kendrick is the perfect coach for me, and the school is the perfect place for my education. I want to win a championship and I hope I can win it as a UPEI Panther!"

Suleman attended the Central Toronto Academy and was recently awarded the Flight Games 2015 Student-Athlete of the Year with “Bigger Than Basketball”. The award recognizes students who excel in more than just basketball, serve as a role model in their community, and is characterized by hard work, perseverance, and positive qualities for younger athletes to look up to.

Adeel Sahibzada, Suleman’s coach with “Bigger Than Basketball” explains, “For Amin, as with anybody, there are always obstacles to overcome, it comes down to building the right mindset, and we’ve seen that maturity develop in him over the two-plus years we’ve know him”.

Coach Kendrick says, "We are very happy to add a guard with Amin's ability to our roster.  He is a pass-first player that can hit the open jumper from range. Amin is an "old school" type guard that sees the floor very well, and is a competitor!"

“I’m very excited to be part of the Panther family,” says Suleman. “I look forward to the coming years as both a student and athlete at UPEI.”

Both Mohamed and Suleman are enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts program at UPEI.

About UPEI Athletics and Recreation

  • Nine varsity sports and six club team programs
  • Proud member of the AUS and CIS
  • Athletic facilities include: Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre, UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place
  • Home of Panther Sports Medicine
  • Other facilities available to students and the community at large include: fitness centre, squash and racquetball courts, competition and leisure pool with hot tub, and two ice arenas

Mayor of Charlottetown visits UPEI

His Worship Clifford Lee, Mayor of Charlottetown, recently visited the University of Prince Edward Island campus. President Abd-El-Aziz greeted the Mayor at his office where they discussed areas of possible collaboration. The visit included a tour of the School of Sustainable Design Engineering building, currently under construction, which will be completed in September 2016.

First elected to Charlottetown City Council in November of 1987, Mayor Lee has served consecutive terms to date. He was appointed Deputy Mayor in 2000. He was elected as the 45th Mayor of Charlottetown in November of 2003, and re-elected as Mayor in the 2006, 2010 and 2014 municipal elections.
 

UPEI community saddened by death of esteemed faculty member

The University of Prince Edward Island community was saddened by the sudden death of Dr. Barry Bartmann on Friday, August 21. Dr. Bartmann had been a Professor of Political Science at UPEI since 1987.

“Our University has lost a great professor and colleague,” said President Alaa Abd-El-Aziz. “On behalf of the entire UPEI community, I pass on my most sincere sympathies to Dr. Bartmann’s sister Sheila, his extended family, friends, and colleagues—especially those in the departments of Political Science and Island Studies.”

His colleagues from the Political Science and Island Studies departments have prepared the following tribute:

As all those who knew Barry Bartmann will agree, he was an exceptional human being, a professor in the old mode, who cared about learning and teaching. He would have turned 74 in September.

Barry was an undergraduate at Waterloo Lutheran (now Wilfred Laurier) University and obtained his MA and PhD in political science at the University of Western Ontario and the London School of Economics. Barry’s areas of expertise included the International Relations of Small States, International Relations (Foreign Policy Analysis, International Organizations, Integration Studies) and Comparative Politics (Small States, Britain and Western Europe, Middle East Studies).

Of very few academics can it be said that they almost single-handedly created a new field in their discipline, but it was true of Barry. After he arrived at UPEI in 1987, he was instrumental in developing Island Studies, the examination of small island jurisdictions such as Barbados, the Faroes, Iceland, Mauritius, and many others. His passion for Island Studies came through in his work; his international scholarship was highly regarded. He provided specialist advice to various North Atlantic jurisdictions, including Constitutional Committees and Governments of the Åland Islands, the Faroes, and Iceland.

Barry was the academic driver to the internationalization of island studies at UPEI, starting with the spectacularly successful “Islands Living” Conference (1992), then the North Atlantic Islands Programme—now the North Atlantic Forum, which is meeting in Summerside in September this year; he helped organize the Island Studies minor at UPEI (1999), and the Master of Arts in Island Studies (2003).

Barry was a recognized authority on sub-national island jurisdictions and the international relations of small (or micro) states, those very small countries usually overlooked and ignored by most scholars in comparative politics and international relations, and he published articles on places such as Andorra, Liechtenstein, and San Marino. As well, Barry analyzed the role of non-recognized states—among many, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, Transnistria, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus—in the international community, and co-edited the book De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty. He helped organize, and he delivered papers, at many international conferences on these fields.

Unlike many in the social sciences, Barry was also an excellent writer, and his articles were a joy to read. UPEI, and the wider academic community, has indeed lost an erudite scholar—as well as a wonderful cook!
It should also be noted that Barry was a dedicated and outstanding teacher. His many students always held him in very high regard and enjoyed immensely his vast knowledge of the subject matter he taught—and it was a very wide range, indeed. Our students loved him and they will miss him.

The flags on campus have been lowered to half-mast in honour of Dr. Bartmann and will remain so until after the funeral service on Friday, August 28. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Maclean’s Funeral Home: www.macleanfh.com

A memorial for Dr. Bartmann will be held on campus from 4-5 pm, Friday, August 28 in the Faculty Lounge of SDU Main Building.

UPEI Panther training camps for fall sports get underway

The UPEI Panthers will be holding training camps for its fall sports beginning this week. The campus will come alive with student-athletes competing for roster spots. The first training sessions for each sport are as follows:

Tuesday, August 25
3:30–5:30 pm, Field Hockey at UPEI Turf Field

Thursday, August 27
4:00–6:00 pm, Women’s Rugby at UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place

Friday, August 28
9:30–11:00 am, Women’s Soccer at UPEI Turf Field
11:00 am–12:30 pm, Men’s Soccer at Turf Field

Please note that anyone interested in trying out must complete Student-Athlete Registration requirements. For more information, contact Ron Annear at 902-566-0991 or annear@upei.ca.

The first “at home” exhibition play will be the Mulligan Cup next weekend, August 28–30, when the UPEI Men’s and Women’s soccer teams take to the pitch.

Season tickets are now on sale, for more information call Panther Central at (902) 566-0368 or visit gopanthersgo.ca.

About UPEI Athletics and Recreation

  • Nine varsity sports and six club team programs
  • Proud member of the AUS and CIS
  • Athletic facilities include: Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre, UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place
  • Home of Panther Sports Medicine
  • Other facilities available to students and the community at large include: fitness centre, squash and racquetball courts, competition and leisure pool with hot tub, and two ice arenas

UPEI Swimming lands major sprinting recruit

University of Prince Edward Island Swimming Coach Bill Calhoun is excited to announce Allen Boshnyak is joining the Panthers this fall.

The 21-year-old International student from Israel will make an immediate impact in the AUS. His times from last season would have seen him ranked second in the 50-metre backstroke and butterfly and would have qualified Boshnyak for the CIS Championship.

“With the appropriate development, Allen has the potential to not only make finals at CIS (Top 8) but potentially win the 50 m backstroke,” said Coach Calhoun. “His underwater kicking talent is by far the best in the AUS and possibly in the CIS. The team is extremely excited to have Allen joining the team in September and we look forward to seeing what he is capable of achieving for the swimming team and UPEI Athletics.”

Boshnyak said on a recent visit to campus, “I look forward to swimming for UPEI, it’s a great school and a great opportunity.”

Boshnyak will be entering the Bachelor of Arts program.

About UPEI Athletics and Recreation
• Nine varsity sports and six club team programs
• Proud member of the AUS and CIS
• Athletic facilities include: Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre, UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place
• Home of Panther Sports Medicine
• Other facilities available to students and the community at large include: fitness centre, squash and racquetball courts, competition and leisure pool with hot tub, and two ice arenas


 

UPEI leads 3-year study on impacts of pesticide run-off on lobster

The University of Prince Edward Island is taking the lead on a team of researchers examining the potential impact of agricultural pesticide run-off on lobsters in the Northumberland Strait. The three-year study is funded by a Strategic Partnership Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and brings together partners from UPEI, the PEI Fishermen’s Association (PEIFA), and Homarus Inc.—a non-profit organization managed by the Maritime Fishermen’s Union.
 

 
“The lobster populations in the Northumberland Strait have been collapsed for quite a number of years, and no amount of fisheries measures seem to have improved that,” said Dr. Michael van den Heuvel, UPEI’s Canada Research Chair in Watershed Ecological Integrity and principal investigator of this project. “The conclusion is that there are other influencing factors that are not coming from the strait itself. They’re, in fact, coming from the surrounding land.” 
 
Dr. van den Heuvel explains that estuaries and coastal zones are under environmental pressure due to urban development, agriculture, and climate change. In the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, this is of special concern.
 
“The uniqueness of that area is mainly because of the proximity to shore on both sides,” said Craig Avery, president of the PEIFA. “You have a lot more contaminants, a lot more run-off, and you have them coming from both sides. The strait is right there, and there’s nowhere else for it to go.” 
 
Foremost among those contaminants are pesticides that are highly toxic to invertebrates, especially crustaceans such as lobster.
 
“We are interested in any effect that could potentially be an explanation. It could be temperature. It could be pesticides. It could be acidification. We are studying all of those aspects,” said Dr. Dounia Daoud, a research scientist with Homarus Inc. “I am proud that the fishermen are taking care of their resource. I think it’s important. They are at the origin of our involvement of this project. It’s original and new that fishermen are taking care of the future.”
 
This project brings together faculty and student researchers from diverse fields at UPEI, including Dr. Spencer Greenwood, professor of biomedical sciences at the Atlantic Veterinary College and director of the Lobster Science Centre; Dr. Brian Wagner, professor of chemistry; and, Dr. Michael van den Heuvel, professor of biology.
 
Dr. van den Heuvel indicates the project will seek to answer the question of whether or not pesticides are having an influence on organisms in the Northumberland Strait. The project will also establish new long-term monitoring methods to improve our understanding of how the environment changes in response to activity on land.
 

UPEI Field Hockey announces Sarah Sear to join Panthers this fall

University of Prince Edward Island Field Hockey coach Sheila Bell is excited to announce Sarah Sear from Charlottetown will join the Panthers this fall.

The Colonel Gray field hockey graduate is a quick forward with an ability to score. Sear participated at the U-18 Nationals in Vancouver and U-16’s in Brampton in 2013, U-18 Nationals in Calgary in 2014, and the U-18 Nationals held earlier this month, August 5–8, in Surrey, BC. Sear was selected to the Junior Development Target in 2013 and has attended a number of Field Hockey Canada identification camps for junior players.

Sear was a member of Colonel Gray High School’s provincial-winning cross country and track and field teams during all three of her years of high school while also playing provincial hockey and soccer. At the Colonel Gray graduation, Sear received the Colin F. Macdonald Scholarship for a first-year UPEI Panther Field Hockey student-athlete.

Coach Bell is looking forward to Sarah making an impact on the UPEI forward line.

Sear has been accepted into the Bachelor of Science program at UPEI.

About UPEI Athletics and Recreation

  • Nine varsity sports and six club team programs
  • Proud member of the AUS and CIS
  • Athletic facilities include: Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre, UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place
  • Home of Panther Sports Medicine
  • Other facilities available to students and the community at large include: fitness centre, squash and racquetball courts, competition and leisure pool with hot tub, and two ice arenas
     
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